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We did it. We plugged this stuff back in, stepped onto a stage, and lived to tell. My voice is in fact operational, and we shall now commence a gradual return to active duty, beginning this Friday in Marion, IL, at the world famous John Brown’s On The Square, with a few of our closest friends. We’ll follow that up with a St. Patrick’s Day set at The Cobra in East Nashville, with the road dogs of Stone Senate, Cody Parks & The Dirty South, and Atomic Love from Chicago. From there, we’ll make a quick run down to Birmingham, Alabama on the 21st, for a long-overdue visit to the CBGB’s of the Southeast, The Nick. We’ll be supporting BeItTheMeans, and Pearl Bottom Radio from Atlanta will be on hand as well.

As for our big comeback show, it was a sold out night for the Framing Hanley gents at Exit/In, and we were happy to have an opportunity to test the waters with a quick 25-minutes set in front of an already mostly-full house of folks there to celebrate the release of their new album. It was exactly what we needed, and now we know we’ve at least got approximately a half hour’s-worth of available gas in the tank….so hell, lets go play for 2.5 hours this weekend.What could go wrong?

On the solo tip, I’ve got a couple of acoustic shows on the calendar, with more in the works. I’ve got new shirts that’ll be traveling with me, and yeah, we’ll have them at band shows too. The record has been getting a little attention overseas, with airplay in Switzerland, and some good press in the UK, along with a song or two making Spotify playlists here & there. I appreciate folks sharing it, and showing it love. Thank you. I wish I had more time to get behind it, but I’ve been tied up with rehabbing my voice, along with trying to complete a new record with The Great Affairs. In fact, I spent a good portion of this afternoon re-cutting some guitars for a track that’s already been mixed, but just wasn’t doing the trick for me. We’re at that point in the process on a lot of this material, putting the finishing touches on some tunes, starting on lead vocals for the last few, and perpetually tweaking things we might’ve thought at one point we’d already put behind us.

The reason for all these fits & starts? It’s pretty simple actually. It’s a fairly eclectic batch this time around. Where ‘Ten & 2’ was more or less a straight Rock record, aside from a lone ballad that Kenny brought to the table, this one is all over the damn place. Some of these songs pre-date my first solo record from 2016, and were even contenders for that LP, but got the bump in favor of the more Singer/Songwriter-type numbers. A handful of them are a little heavier on the production side of things than we’d normally tackle, and will be all but impossible to play live, which is another reason they’ve languished on the bench for a few years. Now that we’ve taken the plunge on them however, I wish we’d given them a shot sooner, because they’re shaping up to be fantastic additions to the canon.

I suspect you’ll be able to judge for yourself in a few short months. For now, you can hear “I’m Alright”, “Satellite” and “In The Wreckage” as part of ‘The 2019 Sessions’ EP that we released last year digitally. Those three will be included with the new full-length, but don’t even begin to illustrate the scope of the whole collection, believe me. It’s the goods.

OK then, I’m gonna sign off now, and watch the new David Crosby documentary, because I find the fact that he’s still alive to be downright amazing. I need to know his secret.

Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

It’s been 5 weeks and some change since I went under the knife to correct the bit of damage I’d done to my vocal cords, and this morning I headed in for what would hopefully be one last followup scope at Vanderbilt, fingers crossed I might get the go-ahead to start performing live again.

My luck held, and everything seems to be in working order thus far, meaning I’m good to resume crooning in public. In the interest of not subjecting myself to this rigamarole ever again, we’ll be easing back into action with a few shows over the next month or two, and putting the freshly repaired apparatus, and our slightly atrophied chops through the paces gradually, so we can get back up to speed gradually and maybe stay there a while.

Our first order of business will be a quick support slot at Framing Hanley’s album release show on Saturday, February 22nd. That goes down at Exit/In, starting at 7:30 with Sons Of Our Fathers, followed by us, Lonelyouth, and the headliners. I’m pretty sure some tickets are still available at the moment, but I’d imagine this will sell-out, so if you’re looking to attend, it might be best to ante up pronto.

Once we get the “comeback” under our belts, we go straight into studio mode from the 23rd-30th, at various locations, doing guitars, the last needed bass parts, and probably some vocals, as we head into the home stretch of tracking.

As soon as we get that behind the scenes business out of the way, it’s time to stretch our legs a bit, and hit up our favorite haunt John Brown’s On The Square in Marion, IL, on Friday, March 6th for an evening of anything goes, where we’ll find out whether or not we can still play all these songs we’ve written over the last decade or so. I’m confident our little hiatus will prove beneficial, and I can think of no better place to test my theory.

I’ll have new solo merch on hand, with these ‘From The Dark 2020’ tees. You can get them now via our StoreFrontier (CLICK HERE) page(in hoodies and guys’ & girls’ styles), but I’ll have a limited number of them with me at upcoming TGA & solo dates as well.

As for those solo engagements, I’m still ironing out a few details, but they’re in the works. It’ll be just me & an acoustic guitar…maybe a harmonica or two…doing the songs, as they were originally written, from my records, TGA stuff, some fORMER, and whatever covers I might feel like taking a crack at.

Finally, I’ll leave you with these shots from a recent video shoot, where we basically played slightly more belligerent versions of ourselves, as a rock band hired to realize the vision of the another songwriter. Keep an eye out for Thunderbunny’s “The Ballad Of Wonder Hussy”, and catch an Oscar-worthy performance from our very own Patrick J. Miller.

Be good to each other,
Denny

Captain's Log, 12:26PM, 1/15/20

Well, here we are. 2020. I hope everyone survived Christmas and New Years with all their digits intact and whatnot. Things were fairly subdued around these parts, aside from the usual scattering we do in order to spend time with our extended families: Matt to Colorado, Patrick & I to Illinois, and Kenny over the river and through the woods.

We’re all safely back in the great state of Tennessee now, and while we haven’t officially reconvened in a music-making capacity, that is about to change. On Tuesday, Matt will be laying down his bass tracks on a few more tunes for the new record. From there, this stuff gets handed off to Patrick, then on to our go-to piano man Michael Webb, and finally circling back around to me for a few finishing guitar touches before we start crooning over them.

On that note, I guess this would be a good time to address the whole voice surgery thing. I actually just left my 10-day followup appointment, and the news is all good! The procedure was successful, and everything is healing as expected, so it’s just a couple more days of restricted speaking for me. I’ll still require a few weeks of therapy to get everything back in shape before I can start singing, but we can get back to work once all the requisite muscles are cooperating as they should. I can tell you this much: I feel a whole lot better already, but please be patient with us as we ease back into the live thing, because I wanna be sure everything is indeed fully operational, so I can hopefully avoid ever having to go through this crap again.

And yeah, I know, I’ve got a solo album I said I’d try to do some shows for, so I’m gonna be working on that too, even it’s just me with an acoustic guitar, banging through the stuff all by my lonesome up there. I promise I’ll make a few dates happen.

If you haven’t heard my new record yet, it’s now pretty much everywhere you can stream or download music, so name your poison, because I can’t think of a single digital platform that hasn’t made ‘From The Dark’ available, legal or otherwise.

Should you wish to acquire it the (now)old-fashioned way, you can snag it on CD from all the usual suspects like Amazon, CDBaby, Kool Kat Musik, or directly from our website by clicking on the "STORE" tab above.

Thanks again to everyone who’s purchased, streamed, pirated, and bootlegged it already. I hope it hits the sweet spot, however it found you.

I think that’s everything worth talking about at the moment, so thank you for reading this far, and I please stay tuned for further updates. If all goes to plan, we’ll be scribbling some things on the calendar soon.

Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

Well, the worst of it is over. My throat’s still a little sore, but my tongue, teeth, lips and jaw seem to be responding well to this dope they’ve given me, so I guess I’m just gonna coast on these chemicals for a few days until the aches & pains hopefully subside. I suppose it stands to reason that having a breathing tube in, tiny blades slicing, and lasers shot down your windpipe might leave a fella with some residual discomfort, so if this is as bad as that’s gonna get, I feel pretty good about it.

Thanks to the folks at Vanderbilt (and my home nurse/chauffeur/personal assistant Joann) for taking great care of me.

I’ve got a few really sharp before & after pics from down in there, but in the interest of not grossing anyone out, or having Facebook lock my account for posting what might offend someone looking at my vocal cords from the wrong angle and assuming they’re something else entirely, I’m gonna spare y’all. It’s my understanding that they got everything done that needed done, and I should be on a relatively short road to recovery. I can’t speak AT ALL for the rest of this week, but I’ll be easing back into normal speech over the course of the next, and shortly thereafter I should be cleared to resume attempting what I’ve been passing off as singing all these years.

Truthfully, I’m relieved to be putting this behind me. I’d been fighting it for months, working around the damage without even really knowing that’s what I was dealing with. The post-gig soreness; not to mention the stress of simply never knowing how long my voice would hold up while staring down the clock, had made playing live more an exercise in managing anxiety than the much-needed release it should be. I’m looking forward to looking forward to shows again.

I’ll do a more proper update once I’ve seen the docs again in a few days, and they get me up to speed on what’s next. While my immediate family learns to love me as a mime, I’m gonna take this downtime to wrap up some year-end business, spin a few records I’ve been wanting to really dig into, finish reading Danny Gatton’s biography, get started on the cover art for The Great Affairs’ next LP(It has a title.), and sort out how to juggle doing the band AND some overdue solo dates to support ‘From The Dark’ once I’m out of the weeds.

Be good to each other,
Denny

Good Bad News: New Album Out Everywhere Today and Going Under The Knife…

Today’s the day, ladies and gentlemen. ‘From The Dark’ goes international. My second official solo LP should be streaming and/or downloadable anywhere around the globe with an adequate connection to the internet.

Lots of folks already have hard copies, courtesy of our own order fulfillment center, and I would like to say thanks again for jumping on the opportunity to actually own the CD, because while paying to manufacture an album can be somewhat risky in this new age of “gimme” digital consumption, and usually second only to the expense of the actual recording, mixing, and mastering process, it is also the sale of that physical product that best helps an artist recoup their expenses.

In other words, for those of us without unlimited funds to throw at the game, selling enough of this release means we can at least consider the possibility of making a next one. So, I say once more: THANK YOU!

Once I wrap this note up, you’ll see variety of links below that include a handful of the options available for acquiring or perusing the album. These are just a few of the platforms that are offering it, but I think I’ve covered all the major players. If you use a service you don’t see listed, chances are they have it too, but I’d never heard of it, and as such omitted it by virtue of my own sad ignorance.

Here’s a link to the first really in-depth(and rather glowing) write-up on the record from our friends at Real Gone in The U.K.

REAL GONE REVIEWS 'FROM THE DARK'

While that’s all seemingly good news, and I sincerely wish I had nothing of a contrary nature to deliver, here’s what’s up with my voice:

Voice rest and a bunch of therapy sessions have worked wonders. I had a followup scope done Wednesday, and things looked much better than they did in October. However, the polyp itself is still present, and doesn’t appear to be shrinking much if at all. My voice has actually improved pretty dramatically as well, but it’s not terribly durable, and still riddled with odd spots where my range just doesn’t feel obligated to cooperate. In short, it’s too unreliable to count on for live performances.

Now, I could give it more time to bounce back on its own, but it’s looking less and less likely that this will yield the desired degree of healing. My other option is a rather costly surgery involving lasers and blades called a microflap excision. Yeah, it’s not without some attendant recovery time, but this is certainly a more expeditious method for putting the damn thing behind me than attempting to wait it out for months and THEN need to have this procedure done anyway, which is probably what would happen.

So, on Monday, January 6th, I’m going to have the interloper cut out, and start the process of getting back whatever voice I had before it showed up.

With a new record just out of the gate that I’d really hoped to promote with some solo shows, this is about as inopportune a situation as I could imagine, but I’ll get it fixed and do my best to make up for the lost time once I’m operating above 70% again, I swear.

OK, enough about me, let’s move on to what’s been happening with The Great Affairs.

We’re well into work on the next opus(which yes, will include the ‘2019 Sessions Vol. 1’ material, seeing as the above voice issues squashed any possibility of us completing a second installment of those for the year …..sorry.), with Kenny having laid down drum tracks for 7 new tunes recently. I’ve already cut my various instrumental contributions to 5 of these, and Matt is adding bass to a few of them this week at Pastry Park.

There’s no real ETA on a new LP, and I think we’re still a couple of tunes away from having exactly what we need to make this thing a suitable followup to ‘Ten & 2’, but we’re inching along as our schedules allow.

In the meantime, here’s a little some of what we did in 2019, set to one of the tunes from the first(and only) volume of that EP “series”:

OUR YEAR IN REVIEW(“I’m Alright”):

…oh yeah, and here’s that drummer of ours talking shop:

KENNY WRIGHT INTERVIEW WITH METAL COFFEE GRINDER BLOG

I think that’s about it for now.

Here’s to a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers,
Denny
The Great Affairs

CLICK HERE TO ORDER 'FROM THE DARK' CD DIRECT(INCLUDES STICKER & GUITAR PICK)

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and finally, CLICK HERE TO ORDER 'FROM THE DARK' APPAREL VIA STORE FRONTIER(GUYS' & GIRLS' T-SHIRTS, HOODIES, KIDS' STUFF)

Another preview!

It's been a couple of weeks, and we're right around the corner from announcing pre-order info, and all the details on what you'll get (and when you'll get it) if you buy direct, so I figured it's time to drop another one of these preview tunes.

This time it's the title track, and opening number "From The Dark". It's a pretty stripped-down piece, one half of a pair that bookends the record..no drums, no bass...just me making the rounds on acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica, while my regular accomplice Kenny Wright adds some percussion flourishes, and Michael Saint-Leon mans the board.

One of the more subdued songs in the batch, and certainly not a bombastic lead-off, but I wasn't going for bombast, and this just seemed best suited to set the tone thematically for what would come after.

"From The Dark"

Time to pull back the curtain some......

Trying To Break Your Heart.

According to the original lyric sheet for this one, I started work on this on May 31st of 2018. It’s been a minute, so let me see what I recall about putting this number together.

I remember writing the original intro/verse bit on guitar and then wondering if it might sound cooler on piano, so I slid over to the keys and goofed around until I was able to shift those weird, inverted guitar chords over to something I could fumble through with a reasonable degree of seeming competency. Somewhere in the midst of that process, it occurred to me that these parts might benefit from giving them a little Jeff Lynne/ELO treatment, hence the funky clav part that now sits there.

The lyrics and music for this one developed in step, for the most part, but my notes show a few revisions that must’ve happened along the way, and a few lines that got jettisoned as work progressed…thankfully, because a couple of these are really not so good. Whew(brow wipe).

The demo for this is the exact same arrangement, save for a few shifts that were implemented once we got down to cutting the final tracks. Criss really brought a cool feel to the verses with the floor tom groove, where the demo had been kinda stiff, the way most demos that employ programmed drums tend to be. Luckily we were able to salvage all my original string parts and keys, because I would’ve lost my mind if I’d had to go back and figure out what the hell nonsense I’d put together a year and a half earlier.

The only real ad-lib in the whole mess, aside from the massive improvements and humanity Dave & Criss brought to the rhythm section, would be the little outro guitar figure. That was a noodle that just happened and managed to stick…a ’62 Fender Strat through a Micro POG, into a Marshall JCM800…it felt like maybe a quick sendoff melody was in order.

Most of the other guitar on this is my Schecter Robin Zander model hollow body, some Gibson SG for muscle here & there, and the aforementioned Strat through my VOX AC30 for all the clean parts, because that’s just Rock N’ Roll 101. I mean, come on?

What’s it about? You tell me. I don’t like unpacking that business. That’s why I write songs instead of books, I guess. Here are the lyrics, if you really want try getting to the bottom of the thing.

Cheers,
Denny

TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART

I THOUGHT I KNEW THE WORDS TO MAKE YOU SMILE
AND BRING BACK THE FIRE
BUT TAKING YOU HIGHER, IS GETTING ME DOWN
I GUESS I DON’T HOLD THE ANSWER TO YOUR PRAYERS
OR MAKE YOU BURN WITH DESIRE
NOT LIKE THE LIARS, WHO’D SCREW YOU AROUND

I’M JUST A MAN WHO’S ON A MISSION
NOT SOME CRIMINAL AT LARGE
THERE’S NO NEED FOR SUPERSTITION IN THIS DARK

IT’S NOT ALONE IF WE’RE TOGETHER
ONLY PIECES WHEN WE PART
IT’S JUST TONIGHT, IT’S NOT FOREVER
IT’S NO FLAME, IT’S JUST A SPARK
BUT I’VE BEEN DYING TO CHANGE YOUR WEATHER
I JUST DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START
‘CAUSE YOU WON’T NOTICE ME
TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART

I THOUGHT IF I COULD CHIP AWAY THE STONE
AND TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES
BUT FAIL TO EXPIRE, I COULD TURN YOU AROUND

BUT YOU DENY EVERY PETITION
YOU’RE STOIC LIKE A GUARD
IT KEEPS ME TIED TO THIS POSITION IN THE DARK

IT’S NOT ALONE IF WE’RE TOGETHER
ONLY PIECES WHEN WE PART
IT’S JUST TONIGHT, IT’S NOT FOREVER
IT’S NO FLAME, IT’S JUST A SPARK
BUT I’VE BEEN DYING TO CHANGE YOUR WEATHER
I JUST DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START
‘CAUSE YOU WON’T NOTICE ME
TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART

IS IT FEAR, IT IT SUSPICION
YOU’RE A RUNNER ON THE MARK
AND I CAN FEEL YOUR INDECISION IN THE DARK

SHOT!

So I went to the ENT this morning. I’ve been having persistent voice issues for the better part of the Summer that I’d chalked up to plain old fatigue, the likely result of too many back-to-back long gigs, stacked with studio sessions that involved singing parts over and over and over again…a pretty solid recipe for general wear & tear to take a toll on these aging pipes.

It turns out, the breaks in my voice that seemed to plague me at random points in my range are the result of a hemorrhagic polyp on my left vocal cord. In addition to this newsflash, I was informed that I’ve suffered a pretty serious decline in my hearing since my last visit to the audiologist, which is truthfully a bit more alarming to me personally than a glorified blister in the works.

You see, the polyp; should it fail to heal with the help of meds and rest, can be surgically removed. My hearing on the other hand, cannot be fixed with a scalpel. I’m hoping I can let these steroids do their thing, forsake caffeine and alcohol for a minute, and take the recommended 10 days off from speaking, so my next evaluation will show me knocking this knot out with no need for bloodshed. If not, well…..

As this pertains to shows, thankfully I’d already taken October off to finish up my solo record, which I still fully intend to wrap up the final mixes on tomorrow, but I’ve been advised that it would be foolhardy to attempt any live performing that involves putting pressure on my voice box for at least the next few weeks, and possibly longer, until I’ve been given the all-clear from the docs.

This means The Great Affairs will have to bow out of our November commitments in Libertyville, IL, and the Rock N’ Skull Fest. I’m not quite sure just yet whether I’ll be able to do the two solo acoustic dates I have on the books for late November, but for now I’m going to leave them up on the calendar until I hear otherwise from someone more educated than myself.

I’m really sorry, but this isn’t something that can be worked around, and I know this because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past few months: working and singing around a then-unidentified obstacle. Unfortunately, there are no more tricks left to fake my way through, so I’m gonna just follow directions for a change and try to get well.

Now, as for my hearing, and where that leaves us as a good, old-fashioned, loud Rock N’ Roll band? I honestly don’t know. I’m gonna have to get through this one thing first, and think on the other while I’m at it.

My sincerest apologies,
Denny
The Great Affairs

October 2019 on deck, solo album #2 in the bag, and surviving the truly endless Summer.

High of 93° in Nashville today? This IS Fall, right?

Officially autumn or not, we’re rolling up on our final shows of 2019, or at least that’s what the calendar is telling me. Unless something else pops up that calls for us to pack the trailer one more time, it appears that our finale will take place over the course of the first weekend in November, with shows in Libertyville and Pekin, IL.

Now me, I’ve got a couple of other commitments around Thanksgiving, while I’m home visiting family, so if you’re going to be in Central Illinois around Turkey Day, you can catch me doing the solo acoustic thing on Friday night in Peoria at Rhythm Kitchen, or a set opening for The Rumours, and Brent Stortzum & The Valentines on Saturday at The Twisted Spoke Saloon in Pekin.

From there, it looks like The Great Affairs are on hiatus. I don’t really know yet what our plans are for next year, other than attempting to finish up the tracks we started a while back that might bring us a little closer to having a new record in the can.

Truthfully, I’ve been neck-deep in work on my solo record, which we just wrapped up tracking last night, and my mind has been pretty much consumed with bringing those songs to life. In between the handful of dates we did last month in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee, I’ve been holed up in one studio or another, making sure every bit of lean meat I can hang on the bones of these arrangements is securely in place. This particular batch of tunes is more compact, less bombastic, and deliberately streamlined to feature the vocal, as the lyrics are especially personal this time around, and I didn’t want them lost behind a wall of gained-up guitars.

If you were into the first couple of TGA records, this one might be more your speed. While not without the occasional loud guitar and big drums here & there, it’s definitely a moodier outing, owing more to some of my singer/songwriter heroes than the Classic Rock/Power Pop well the band usually tends to draw from. It’s me taking my cues from Justin Currie, Elvis Costello, Paul Westerberg, Donnie Vie, and maybe a little ‘Tunnel Of Love’-era Bruce. I’ll dig into the motivation for the whole endeavor once it’s in the water, and do my best to justify stepping out on the guys for a minute to do this.

The album artwork is completed, but no single has been chosen yet. Once we get that sorted out, along with a release date, formats(vinyl?), new pics, video, etc., I’ll share the title and some previews.

I keep telling people it “feels like a November record” to me, but I’m not sure it’ll be possible to get it out that quickly, so please stay tuned, and maybe also follow my solo FaceBook page for the most current updates. I promise I’ll start using that more often as this thing unfolds.

OK then, I think that’s about all I’ve got to drop on you for now. With any luck there will be another update in a few weeks that sheds a little more light on these proceedings.

Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

SEPTEMBER 2019 UPDATE!

Dear 15-yr. old me,
When you grow up, don’t bother buying a house with a pool, because Phoebe Cates is never going to emerge from it’s waters and remove her bikini top, but keep practicing that guitar, because THAT? THAT might actually pay off down the road.

There’s nothing better than nabbing a good opening slot, particularly when it happens to be direct support for bands whose posters you used to have on your wall, whose arena shows you camped out behind the video store to get first dibs on tickets for, whose tour shirts set you back 2 weeks’ worth of lunch money before you could drive a car or hold down any job other than a paper route or detasseling corn.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Cinderella and Great White over the years, or how many copies of “Night Songs” I straight wore out on cassette, but I can tell you it never gets old being the warmup act for your heroes.

However, it can prove to be a bit daunting under certain circumstances.

Please allow me to elaborate.

Now, as most of you (hopefully) know, The Great Affairs consists of 4 individuals, and while ironically this current lineup probably wouldn’t exist were it not for the fact that both Kenny & Matt had been enlisted as subs along the way, if all four of us can’t make a gig, then we just don’t take that gig.

Sometimes though, you spout off some nonsense like “I’ll do it as a solo acoustic act, if they really need somebody.”, and that comes back to haunt you a few days later when; as it so happens, they DO still need somebody.

So here’s how this all played out: We played a killer outdoor venue(The Shed) up in Maryville, TN, near Knoxville on Friday night, with Jack Russell’s Great White. Fantastic crowd. Great crew. Good people all the way around at this joint, and some bitchin’ BBQ to boot, even if it was something like 100 degrees on that stage.

After the show, we loaded up, and I drove us back to Nashville, because my big mouth had made that offer to open for Cinderella’s Tom Keifer the next night at an amphitheater in Winder, GA, just outside Atlanta. They initially wanted the band, but Kenny couldn’t do the show due to a prior commitment, and I never thought they’d actually take me up on that solo acoustic business(Thanks, Kyle.), but they did, so 4 hours of sleep and 6 hours of driving later, I was soundchecking by my lonesome to a place that holds 1500 people or so, and most of them were in their seats at 7:30, waiting for a big Rock show to begin, when some tall, skinny dude with a Gibson Hummingbird walked on and started strumming his way through an hour of tunes not a one of them had probably ever heard before.

Clearly I lived to tell, as I’m that, tall skinny fella, and it’s me pecking out this update after the fact. People clapped, and hollered some, and I got really nice compliments on my somewhat un-Rock presentation afterwards(For the record, I don’t mind being compared to Rick Springfield. As a matter of fact, I’m pleased as punch with that observation!), but I sure wish the guys had been up there with me. That said, I’d totally do it again.

With that dance dusted, it was right back into the studio, and we’ve done some marathon tracking sessions that have yielded the following results:

My solo record is approximately halfway there. All the drums(Criss Cheatham) and Bass(Dave Webb) are a wrap, and I’ve managed to finish my lead vocals and the bulk of the acoustic tracks, in addition to all sorts of miscellaneous piano, strings, harmonica and whatnot. Lots of work yet to do before we can dig into mixing, but it’s getting there.

Since I had Criss & Dave on the hook as a rhythm section, they and banged out the foundation of 3 more tunes for The Hail Marys project I’ve been working on with Joshua Ketchmark, and Kenny absolutely crushed the drum tracks for 5 new TGA tunes, a new single from The Die Youngs, and some material for his solo project while we were in there.….it’s a mess, but it’s a beautiful one to sift through, believe me. I can’t wait to get these songs into new ears, so I go back in Tuesday morning to get a few more things tied up that I can’t track here at home, and then I’ll be hunkering down in Pastry Park to capture the rest, so we can hopefully move with some degree of swiftness toward having at least my record completed sometime in October.

As for the band and shows…here’s what WE’ve got on deck:

Tomorrow night….

Thursday, August 29th we’re at The Basement in Nashville, TN(8th Ave.)
Doors at 6. Wille & The Bandits(UK) 7-7:35 TGA 7:50-8:30 $5

Friday, September 6th Eighth & Rail Opelika, AL (w/Joshua Ketchmark opening) 9PM

Friday, September 13th John Brown’s On The Square Marion, IL 9PM

Saturday, Sep. 14th Bokeh Lounge Evansville, IN(w/Joshua Ketchmark opening) 5:30PM Early show

Sunday, Sep 15th Summer’s End Fest(Wicked Good) Clarksville, TN 2PM

While we finish up work on all the material from these various projects, before sorting out the wheres, whens, and hows of their impending release(s), I’d say it’s unlikely that anything will see the light of day before the end of the year, unless we go the strictly digital route, but I think we’re all of the same mind on getting something physical out that will include all of the stuff we’ve recorded since ‘Ten & 2’. We should know more as work progresses on the new batch, and we decide whether or not we think we’ve got an actual album here. We may need to cut a few more before we’re ready to commit to these constituting an LP.

Now, betwixt all of that recording business and business business, AND factoring for the show opportunities that will almost certainly pop up, we should be plenty occupied, but please keep an eye on our FACEBOOK page for updates, as that’s still the platform we update most frequently. If something cool is happening with us, that’s your best bet for finding out about it.

Remember to be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

Let's get to work.

Since we last met, we’ve been busy on a few different fronts, and it appears this might remain a trend for a while.

The “Head Light(Live)” single arrived in time for everyone to celebrate our nation’s independence, and is currently available everywhere digital music is sold, as part of our ongoing effort to keep steady the flow of new tunes. We hope everyone is digging on it. Let us know, and maybe we’ll do more of these.

Show-wise, things haven’t been too crazy…just a few dates here & there, but they’ve been good ones, including a private party where I ingested not only several flying insects, but just enough bug repellent to trigger some sort of allergic reaction that rendered me pretty much without voice. While not the first time I’ve lost it, this was definitely the debut of any chemical solution other than alcohol being responsible for it wandering off. Thankfully Kenny was able to cover for me until I could cough up enough of whatever had me congested to at least croak my way to the finish line.

We did an early show in Evansville, IN shortly thereafter, and finally got to publicly air some new stuff, with “I’m Alright” getting an “official” live run-through for the first time. “Satellite” shouldn’t be far behind, and with both of them getting a bit of radio play lately, I imagine they’ll become set staples.

(photo:J. Ketchmark)

We had the honor of supporting Cinderella’s Tom Keifer on a hometown show at The Cowan in Nashville, and managed to turn a bunch of new folks on with a quick 45-minute primer. The Keifer Band were kicking off a tour in support of their new record ‘Rise’, due out in September, and were in fine form. Hopefully we’ll get to do some more dates with them as that train rolls on.

But first, we have more new music to record, and that is officially underway as of yesterday at 11AM, when I arrived at The Switchyard to deliver guide tracks to our engineer Michael Saint-Leon. We spent several hours building sessions for a whopping 19 tunes, with one additional number from our last foray that remains uncompleted bringing the full workload to an even 20.

Now, 10 of these are for my solo record, 3 belong to “The Hail Marys”(a little side-project I’ve been working on with Joshua Ketchmark), 1 is a Kenny Wright solo tune, 1 goes to The Die Youngs, and 5 are designated for The Great Affairs.

You think you’re confused? Try being the guys sorting these into folders and keeping it all straight at the technical level….we nearly misplaced an entire album’s-worth of files at one point. Seriously.

Once that crisis was averted, and a sense of order restored in Hard Drive Land, we even managed to bang out the performances we needed to get title track for my solo album in the can before knocking off for the day. My rhythm section guys, Criss Cheatham & Dave Webb, who both played on my last LP, will be coming in at the end of the month to cut their parts, and then it’s just dressing things up with an assorted cast of characters yet-to-be-determined.

The TGA stuff, and all the rest?…..Well, I don’t know when the ball will start rolling on any of it exactly, but I figure we’ll get to it soon enough. You’ll have to stay tuned for details on that though.

Up next for us:

Friday, August 9th The Shed Maryville, TN (w/ Jack Russell’s Great White) 6PM
Thursday, August 29th The Basement Nashville, TN (w/Willie & The Bandits) 7PM
Friday, September 6th Eighth & Rail Opelika, AL (w/Joshua Ketchmark) 9PM
Friday, September 13th John Brown’s On The Square Marion, IL 9PM
Saturday, September 14th Bokeh Lounge Evansville, IN (w/Joshua Ketchmark) 5:30 PM
Sunday, September 15th Summer’s End Fest Clarksville, TN 2PM

Until next time, be good to each other…for real.

-Denny
The Great Affairs

Heart's a little bit heavy, head a little bit light....

As promised, so delivered, a new version of “Head Light” from fORMER’s ‘The Kids Deserve Cable’, cut “live” somewhere…possibly Rio De Janeiro, or maybe in the studio… I can’t recall exactly.

Here are a few other places you can hear/get it >>>>

Amazon

Anyhow, if you were around before (and actually for a brief period DURING) The Great Affairs began our quest for universal acceptance and/or world domination, Patrick & I were in a band called fORMER that had a couple of records out. In fact, we still play a few tunes from each of them to this day, including our frequent opening number “Head Light”, so Kenny thought it might be cool to bang out a quick live take with this current lineup, and throw it up for you folks.

Mixed by the Street-Lion himself, Mr. Michael Saint-Leon(as usual), it’s no dramatic evolution or attempt at improving on what we thought was already a great track, but it IS a surprisingly tight and slightly different spin on a song that we’ve been kicking around for over 10 years. Hopefully you’ll approve. (Cheers to the “O.G.s who originally brought it to life: Billy Baker, Henry Go, and Lee Coram BTW).

Speaking of originals, we’re celebrating our 10th anniversary as a band. Look at these baby faces..

(TGA MK1-L-R: Tim Good, Patrick Miller, Denny Smith, Matt Andersen)

While we’re getting all misty, ‘Ten & 2’ turned 1 on June 22nd. Awww.

OK then, enough product hype and wistful reminiscing, let’s get on with what’s coming up next.

Shows:
Saturday, July 6th Slide Out Of The Fourth! (Private Event) Marion, IL

Friday, July 19th Bokeh Lounge Evansville, IN w/Joshua Ketchmark opening 5PM(early show)

Tuesday, July 30th The Cowan Nashville, TN opening for Tom Keifer of Cinderella 7PM

Friday, August 9th The Shed Maryville, TN opening for Jack Russell’s Great White 6PM

Clearly we have some free time on our hands this Summer. Our intention is to make the most of it by getting a serious head start on what will eventually(we hope) turn into a full-length. As we crank through them, we’ll continue to release bits & pieces along the way that will ultimately comprise the bulk of a proper LP. We’re also working on another cool idea to sweeten the pot this time around, but I’ll dish more on that later, once we’ve actually dipped our toes.

On the periphery, Joshua Ketchmark is finalizing the mix on our first collaborative single. Once we settle on a name for the project, and have both signed off on a master, we’ll be delivering that little slab of Beatle-esque Pop goodness to your tender eardrums. I think this one is a real gem, and we roped in a couple of highly qualified guests to help us do it up right, as we attempted to apply our hardcore Jellyfish, Oasis, and Lennon/McCartney fandom to maximum effect. I think you’ll know what I mean when you hear it.

AND, while Kenny toils away on his personal ‘Chinese Democracy’(He was about to start messing with something at Black Gold Speakeasy as I was leaving the other day, so I know it’s ongoing.), I’ve decided to move ahead on a second solo release myself. I have a title, and a loose “concept” I feel good about, along with; thankfully, a handful of pieces that seem to sit together comfortably. Initially, I had a grander scope in mind for this outing, but some of the songs on the preliminary contenders list ended up migrating over to the TGA camp, so I’m taking a fork in the road and pursuing a different vibe. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar detour, and I hope some of you folks will be game for taking it with me.

Well, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Go rip that new tune. The louder the better, trust me.

Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

LOVIN' EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

OK, so I know we just had a mid-month update due to the release of our ‘The 2019 Sessions, Volume 1’ EP, so I’ll try to keep this proper monthly recap brief.

First off, regarding the aforementioned trio of new songs, thank you all for the very kind and generous feedback. Both “Satellite” and “I’m Alright” have managed to get some airplay, which is pretty cool considering the fact that we kinda sneaked this thing into the digital marketplace without much real fanfare. If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s now available via pretty much any service you can think of that streams music, so please head over to Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, etc. at your leisure, and give these new offerings a spin. We’ve got a bunch more on deck….

…including a “single” that we plan to drop on July 4th, made to be played at high volume as we celebrate the birth of these (ostensibly) United States. It’s a familiar tune from our back pages that we took a crack at re-recording “live”, a la Peter Frampton(if you know what I mean).

Since our last accounting of activity we’ve played a handful of shows, starting with a couple down South for Joshua Ketchmark and myself, doing the solo acoustic thing, where we encountered a show-stopping downpour in Georgia(outdoor gig), and the single most-annoying song-requester in Alabama that I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of denying. In all my years of attempting to cut through the b.s. of having to play cover tunes, I have found that even a night SPECIFICALLY advertised as featuring original music will almost invariably find itself interrupted by that ONE special someone who is clearly convinced that their favorite song(in this case “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton), is surely in your repertoire.

You can only hope that this individual is not predisposed to insistence.

She was.

I could’ve faked the tune, sure. I know enough of the lyrics to get through a verse or so. That’s standard pacification protocol, but it was late, our drive was long, and I was stone sober, and she was being rude, so I didn’t put in the effort. She was unhappy with me, but informed me she was willing to settle for “Purple Rain”, as though the subject were open for negotiation. I agreed to play “Raspberry Beret”. She’d never heard of it. I shook my head, and told her that was simply tragic, but “Raspberry Beret” was the sole conciliatory gesture I was willing to extend, and she retreated to join her otherwise well-mannered and seemingly less-inebriated group of friends and pout.

I think I won that round, since I was gonna play that particular Prince selection anyway.

Since we had the afternoon to kill the next day, Joshua & I did the “Walking Dead” tourist thing in Senoia, GA, en route to our Atlanta show. Pretty cool. If you’re ever down that way, it’s well worth the detour to check out what is essentially Woodbury from the show, and grab some eats from Norman Reedus & Greg Nicotero’s spot “Nic & Norman’s”.

Then I went to Vegas. I ate, drank, and gambled too much, but laughed just enough. I didn’t know I needed that so badly. It was worth the hangover, and empty wallet.

Upon my return, we loaded up the trailer and hit the road for Herrin, IL, to support Head East & Loverboy. We made mess of new fans, being it was our first time in town. There are a few video clips on our Facebook page, if anyone’s interested. Loverboy sounded fantastic, and catering featured a Vegan option, so Kenny walked away nourished and with very little to complain about.

From there we did a couple of dates in Cincinnati & Chicago. Matt lost his bag in Cincy, but the promoter located it, exactly where Matt left it, and delivered it to our hotel, so that we wouldn’t have to take our bassist to Walmart the next morning to buy a pack of t-shirts and some Rustlers.(Thanks, Jerry). The lesson here: YOUR bag is YOUR bag, and you should always know where YOUR bag is, because chances are nobody else needs anything in YOUR bag, and therefore don’t care where YOUR bag ends up. (Steps down from soapbox….oh, and Happy Birthday, Matt. We still love you.)

I’ve already gone way over time. Somebody should’ve “Gonged” me paragraphs ago, so here’s what’s up next:

We’re off the road in June to work up the songs from the EP for our live set, as well as batting around some more new material that we’ll be taking into the studio soon. I’ve been playing a few things in my acoustic sets, just to see how they fly, and I think we’ve got another pretty strong batch that we should be able to knock out quickly, once we settle on which ones we wanna lay down first.

Shows in July so far look like this:

Saturday, July 6th - Private Event

Friday, July 19 - Bokeh Lounge, Evansville, IN w/Joshua Ketchmark opening EARLY SHOW 5:30-8:00PM

Tuesday, July 30th - The Cowan, Nashville, TN supporting Tom Keifer of Cinderella 7PM

That about covers it. So much for the brevity I promised.

Long live The Dancing Granny of Libertyville!

Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs

NEW MUSIC!!!! The 2019 Sessions, Volume 1 is out now!

The 2019 Sessions, Volume 1: the back story:

Our last LP ‘Ten & 2’ was released on June 22, 2018, nearly a year ago at this writing. BUT, we’ve also just crossed over into our tenth year as The Great Affairs, making the more important milestone to celebrate our decade of operation under that moniker, and thus the urge to spring this trio of songs to commemorate our “Tin” anniversary.

Truthfully speaking; for myself at least, very little is required to get my “studio boots” on, as it’s the part of being in a band that I’m most comfortable with. As much as I love playing shows, the older I (and my ears) get, the more content I am hunkered down somewhere trying to “find the sound” that kept poor Pete from making his way home to Beth.

I spend a lot of time by myself, building these tunes on a computer that we’ll hopefully get to recreate as a band, knowing full well that most of them will never see the light of day beyond their initial demo form. It can be pretty tedious, but emerging from the cocoon of the Pastry Park Audio Confectionery with something new on my hard drive always puts a little fresh gas in the tank, even if maybe only one out of every ten of these compositions makes the grade with the band.

I’m not the only writer in The Great Affairs either, so there’s legit competition for turf on every release. I mean, you’re only gonna squeeze so may tunes onto a long-player as it is, and now you’re compounding that struggle with multiple contributors jockeying for slots on the final roster. We like to pride ourselves on employing the “best man wins” m.o., but democracy can be tricky when you’ve got an even number of voters, and at least one on the panel is logically biased.

…and that, my friends, is how solo albums happen.

So I had begun writing songs for just such an occasion, knowing we had a still-new record out, and would probably spend a year or more getting behind that. I’d already amassed a bunch of material that didn’t seem right for the band, but might work in this setting, so I was basically assembling the missing pieces over the past few months, and looking around to see who I might enlist to play on an album once I had what I thought was a cohesive set together.

I’d started this process once before, just ahead of recording the last record, but that plan was foiled by my bandmates cherry-picking from that playlist things like “Unfound” and “Hands Off The Wheel” for inclusion on ‘Ten & 2’. With those two gone, it seemed best to wait until suitable replacements materialized before digging back into work on a record of my own. Besides, like I said, we had a new release to promote anyway.

Eleven months & change later though, we wanted to float out a few new songs to mark our tenth year, and since we were going to be in the studio already, working on Kenny’s eternally-forthcoming EP, we figured we might as well bang out a few basic tracks to tinker around with. This lead to my demo folder, and some things we’d started but left unfinished a while back.

I’ll get around to that solo thing again someday, I guess.

The songs:
1) I’m Alright: My attempt to marry The Hellacopters with Enuff Z’Nuff. Lots of guitar on this one. Patrick & I cut heads some in the middle. I’m Steve Via, he’s Ralph Macchio…except I win on this one. A bit of deliberate lyrical ambiguity throughout, but I think it’s pretty obvious that bunny rabbits and unicorns weren’t frolicking in my head as I penned it. If you think it’s about you, it probably is.

Michael Saint-Leon really delivered a knockout mix on this one. Every little bit of ear candy we stuck in there gets the spotlight at some point.

2) In The Wreckage:  This was actually cut for ‘Ten & 2’, but left off and uncompleted for a couple of reasons:

1) We already had “Learn To Let Go”, and I thought Kenny had delivered such a great ballad that we didn’t need another one in the lineup, and

2) While I’d cut a “scratch” vocal for it, I wasn’t feeling the lyrical treatment just yet, and needed to walk away from it for a while so I could revisit it later with some perspective. I’m glad I did, because it benefited from the second look.

Thinking this would be a solo tune after dropping it from the last record, I enlisted our Engineer/Producer Michael Saint-Leon to lay down some gorgeous slide guitar and a baritone lead guitar track that really brought things home. Kenny did some last-minute percussion to tie the whole arrangement together, and the finished product far exceeded my initial expectation of a simple stripped-down vocal/acoustic number. In fact, we only included it on the EP because it turned out so damn good that I was afraid to leave it languishing on a shelf in case it never got heard.

3) Satellite:  We get back to our more strummy roots on this one. Matt & Kenny laid down a great pocket, Patrick contributed some tasty slide licks, and I mic’d up a Marshall JCM800 to run my harmonica through so it would scream. Hopefully we’ll be adding this to our live set soon, and I could see us moving more in this direction down the road. It says what it has to say under 3:30. No fluff, just the meat & the potatoes. Well, and maybe a little gravy.

So there you have it. 4 guys(and that one other guy pitching in), some drums, bass, and guitars turned up(and some turned down) to honor this particular passage of time with something a little less expensive than the diamond you’d be on the hook for if we were married and recognizing our decennium.

May 17th, on every streaming and download platform that will have us. Please give ‘em a listen while we’re making more.

Cheers, 

Denny 

The Great Affairs

The Great Affairs The 2019 Sessions, Volume 1
1) I’m Alright  2) In The Wreckage  3) Satellite
All songs © 2019 (Denny Smith: Toonsmith Toons)(ASCAP)
Produced by Denny Smith & Kenny Wright with Michael Saint-Leon Engineered, mixed, & mastered by Michael Saint-Leon @ The Switchyard, Antioch, TN 

Additional recording at Pastry Park Audio Confectionery, Hermitage, TN

The Great Affairs: 

Denny Smith: Vocals, Rhythm & Lead Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Harmonica, Piano 

Patrick Miller: Lead & Rhythm Guitars, Slide Guitar

Matt Andersen: Bass Guitar

Kenny Wright: Vocals, Drums, Percussion

with Michael Saint-Leon: Slide & Baritone Guitar on “In The Wreckage”

Listen here, and pretty much anywhere else that lets you stream our download tunes, like one of the following:

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